I Can See Her up in Glory I Can See Her Through the Pines

These are her flowers.

From the day I heard that song in 2017 or something sitting in my living room with my preordered vinyl copy of Purgatory, it broke my heart. It broke my heart because I knew that it was my Nanny's song. 

"I will follow you to Virgie
although it hurts me so
to lay to rest that mountain beauty
that the Lord's called home.
And I can see her up in Glory.
I can see her through the pines."

Every line of that song tore my heart out from the day I heard it. I couldn't listen to it. I knew the day would come that I would have to make that drive to the mountains to lay to rest our own mountain beauty.

It was rotated through so many of my playlists and this version would come through often. He'd say "This is, uh, Follow You to Virgie" and I would say every time "No the hell it's not" and skip it. I couldn't hear it because I'd cry flowers for her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udNmEEfCcUM

When I got the news, I was with my safe people in my safe place. Looking out onto the mature long leaf pines I know to be full of all the birds she loved and could identify by sight and sound, suddenly my mind sang those words to me. I could not have been in better hands as the framework of my life collapsed. I'm grateful for the people who were there at that moment, and I'm grateful for the ones who weren't.

One of the nonprofit babies saw that. I hate that. But this sweet, shy child, came over and hugged me so hard. I thanked her and told her that she was a kind girl. Tell children the best of themselves.

"I reckon we were heathens

but in her eyes we were saints."

She had this way of making you feel better than you were. But also of making you feel guilty for not actually being as good as she believed of you. I lived every moment with her trying to make her proud. And in the end, I did. That woman loved me. And she was so damn proud of me. She never did like me though. I thought for my entire life it was because I was too loud and too large and too outspoken and too smart. I think now though, she just saw so much of herself in me.

I look back at the stories she told about herself. I think about the things she would say that shocked us all. We were so much the same. We love hard and we never stop loving. We forgive so easily. But we also will hold your ass accountable when you mess up. She'd put your picture face down on her dresser and twitch her nose "Well." I'll dress you down publicly. Okay, fine, and maybe also twitch my nose "Well." We are strong, resourceful, smart, resilient, capable, loyal, loving, creative, hardworking, faithful, sharp women.

I spent so much of my life trying not to be like her. I guess youth only lets you see the things that you don't like. She allowed herself to be fully controlled by a man. He wasn't nice to her by her own accounts. I honestly believe he probably had some serious undiagnosed anxiety disorder, which probably contributed to his early death. Nanny always said Pawpaw was snappish and unkind at home, but he was the life of the party anywhere else. I find that immensely relatable.

The older I got and the older I get, the more it's the highest compliment to be like her. Everywhere she went, she took home with her. She was home. Not just to her blood, but to so many others. Everyone was instructed to call her "Nanny" even if she didn't like you and thought you were kind of ugly. And when she said "ugly," I'm sure all that Damn Fool could hear was that she didn't think he was handsome. She never could resist a blue-eyed man with good manners. She thought he was ugly on the inside. And she could see it. She could feel it. I never bothered to clarify for him. Let him sort himself out. I got tired of trying to help someone who doesn't want to help himself and who hurts me along the way. I don't know where I learned that second part, the part that wasn't her, but sir, I'm the Princess of Leave.

Gabe said as much recently. About me being "just like her." He was careful. He knew my attitude about her "letting" a man tell her she couldn't go to nursing school and not letting her have a car and always defaulting to a man for answers. I spent my life striving to make sure that I never had to be in that position. I worked so hard to have my education and my career. She worked so hard for those things. I beat all the odds. I'm a fractional statistic of a fractional statistic in a good way. And it's because Nanny made sure of it. Had we been able to sort out the cost, she'd have sent me to law school. Who knows? I still have plenty of time and energy to chase our dreams.

These days, and in context, I couldn't think of higher praise. When Gabriel said it, he meant that I'm home. And not just to my kin. He's gotten to see recently, as an adult, the way that I love people who don't have enough of the right kind. I'll bake your favorite treats and give you a place to shower and wash your clothes and I'll tell you I'm proud of you and that I love you. I'll answer the phone at 2:30am. I'll also tell you that you can do better when you aren't doing what you know is right. And I seem to have found my place to do that. And I am so grateful. I think she'd be proud. And who knows, if  Pawpaw had what we're working so hard to build after he got back from the Navy, maybe he would have felt like he could work out some of his anxiety and not take it out on his family.

And yes, maybe these events happened the way they did for a reason. One of the last conversations I got to have with Nanny was telling her that I found God. I didn't tell her it's not exactly the way she thought he was gonna be. We talked about my grant writing certification and my career. And she just beamed. Thin and tired as she was, in pain, she was so happy and so proud. I have to remember that when anything grows too quickly, it hurts. And this pain is just rapid growth, I think. And I'm thankful.

She was so smart. She got a 97 in high school algebra. Which only made it worse when I failed high school algebra the first time I took it. She did not fare so well in English. And I think that's how I earned her admiration. She could not spell her way out of a wet paper sack. "Parmejohn" cheese. "Spagheti" sauce. These are real life examples. I joke that when she gets to heaven, she'll have perfect pitch and she'll be able to spell. And for some reason, that tugs my heart now. Her misspellings. It's part of what made me understand how everyone is smart in different ways. When I hear Stephen say he's stupid, I pull up hard. No, you're just smart different than me. And he is. I hate that Nanny didn't get to meet him. She'd have loved him so. A man of faith who looks like a cross of her first love and my baby brother. Oh yeah. And he does. He shaved a week or so ago and I would have given a dollar to see my face when I saw him. A dark-eyed Pawpaw.

She had the best surprised face. When I painted her a lake with a waterfall and mountains and had it custom framed, she asked if it was paint by number. When I told her no, she had that face. My favorite thing in the world is that face. Then I immediately become embarrassed at my own pride.

I knew without a doubt that she needed a white casket. She always thought white was so clean and classy. I remembered how many great-grandchildren she had when everyone lost count. I remembered her mother's full name. I found a photo of her hair done the way she liked it, because I had her hair and makeup done professionally for my wedding. She always said she didn't want her hair to look like an old lady. She was 97 and a half years old, y'all. I helped everyone pick flowers they all loved. And the flowers turned out perfectly. She would have been happy, I think. They looked natural and dignified and still feminine and lovely. She wore blue. The color all the women in my family look best in. I think Mama picked her clothes. I remember walking into her bedroom and seeing that dress, and her cream-colored slip and just sitting by the edge of the bed and crying into the hem. She's got my tears with her for eternity.

Honestly, she looked kinda pissed. I kept saying that she looked like her nose was about to twitch. My sister said that she looked mad because she was mad. She was mad that she died, Lena said. I laughed out loud because that sounds exactly right. I've never known anyone who loved life in the way my Nanny did. She loved food and travel. She loved people and God. She loved trees and flowers and birds and rocks and bugs and snakes and all of God's creation. She loved holidays and celebrations of any sort. She loved babies and the occasional glass of white wine. She loved fashion and nice cars. She loved art and music. She loved everything. And so, yes, she probably was mad that she died. And I love that about her so much.

I asked her if living through the war was hard. If living through the Depression was hard.
She told me that when news of the war broke, she was standing at the ironing board, listening to the radio. I believe Pawpaw was in the Navy then. I got the impression that she wasn't afraid. That she kept ironing. A steel-boned corset, that lady.

When I asked her about the Depression, she would say she remembered that they would barter eggs from their chickens for oranges. She told me that because they never had much to begin with and that Mother made sure they had what they needed, that it didn't hit them too hard as children. She'd have been age two to twelve at the time. Nanny's father had died as part of a civil rights riot on Christmas Day the year Nanny was born. He was an Irish cop, if you need a stereotype. I can tell that story some time. But it meant that her mother was left raising two daughters alone. Two years later was the Depression. Mary Orlena Gibson Conner Payne was a Depression-era midwife and nurse. In photos, she is my own mother. They look identical. From body shape to that stern expression. Mama doesn't know how that alone makes me proud of her. To carry that visage. The look of the strongest woman I could ever aspire to emulate. The power of our matriarchs.

She told me that her brother, Lonnie was also in the Navy. That he'd bring her chocolate bars when he came home to visit. That's why she loved chocolate so much. I mean, chocolate is a wonderful thing, but she loved it because she loved her brother who she lost. She had such a poetic soul. I may never make that chocolate cheesecake again. That was hers.

I spent that few days so upset that maybe I never told her how I really felt about her. That's my greatest fear: losing anyone without telling them exactly how much I feel for them. I cried over that. I cried over my own pride getting in the way of what could have been better if not for me.

After her funeral, we went home to look one more time for all of the correct insurance information. Let me tell you, that woman had life insurance on everyone. Mama and my aunt and uncles, me and my siblings and cousins, Gabe and Ansley. If there had been a house fire at a holiday, she'd have been able to buy that red convertible she always said she wanted. I just wanted to make sure that we had all the paperwork needed. Paperwork, that's my area.

So I'm in her bathroom closet. Y'all, that closet held the secrets of the universe. That closet is how she had all her own teeth at 97. That closet is how she looked so young even though she tanned herself into skin cancer and never had any kind of cosmetic procedure. That closet held her hair curlers and her powders and perfumes and face creams and the things most precious to her. All that was at the bottom. So I looked there for paperwork. I found something. And it was paper. 

She always kept photo albums. I knew that. She loved to see her family and friends and she collected newspaper articles and birth announcements and all manner of ephemera. (As a side note, I chose that word because it's what my mind said. I then went to look it up to be sure. It was perfect diction. She'd have loved that.) I opened one of the photo albums and it was cards. But it was more. It was letters and notes. It was the piece of paper we used to keep by the phone to let everyone know where we were before cell phones were really a whole thing. Just rows and rows of "Gone to work. -Leanna" and "Went to the video store. Be back soon. -David" And tucked in that photo album, I found all the words I was afraid I never said. How much I loved and admired her. How thankful and grateful I was to her. How glad I am that she always pushed me to do better and how I worked so hard to make her proud. Letters from when I was a teenager and couldn't even make the words fit into sentences well at all. I remembered a card I'd given her one year that made her cry. I really didn't mean to. I just told her my heart. And I remembered. 

And then I broke down again. Hard. My baby brother got freaked out and left me crying sitting on the bathroom floor, where her scent lingered and her spirit will always live for me. Sent one of the other women after me. Dudes. Some dudes. My dudes won't leave me crying. They'll listen to me ugly cry and hug me and literally wipe my nose. Emotions don't freak them out. And I love that about them. They handle it better than I do and that's rare for men. It makes me proud to know them. It gives me hope.

So after those days of being terrified that I'd never get to tell her what she really meant to me, I realized I had for twenty-five years. I think as we aged together, we both softened. She has never told me I'm pretty. She said one time when I was seventeen and tan and blonde and young "You'll never be prettier than you are right now." And that was a compliment from her. Thanks, I think? Southern. In the past year or so, she's looked at me on two separate occasions and called me beautiful. I would have paid to see my reaction to that. Not that it changed a thing, but she always had this way of complimenting things that weren't my looks. And honestly, I did need to hear that I was pretty. It's a small, silly little thing, but it healed that teenager who always felt ugly but couldn't quite look in the mirror and know why.

She is why I love words the way that I do. She planted that seed in me and she fed it. Nurtured it. She read to us every night. So many books. We'd sit in her bed, no headboard, just the hard, white wall and thin pillow. I always sat next to her with my baby brother on the other side, tucked under the covers. She would do the voices and everything. She never hesitated. She didn't have any self-consciousness around being silly. I loved her silliness.

I was young. Too young to read. So, maybe three or four? I don't remember even knowing the letters. I was sitting with Nanny and my sister on the living room sofa. She was reading "Three Little Pigs." We all know that story. We've known it forever. I knew it by heart. And we got to a spot I'd heard so many times I remembered. And I "read" the words. And she praised me. Anyone who knows her knows her saying "That's right!" She was such a good mother in those ways. And from that moment, books were my love. Words. And if you read enough beauty, you'll have to try to write your own. So, in all the ways that matter most, she's the reason you're reading this.

All of my teachers who love books have mattered to me. Mrs. Pepe fostered that little seedling that was my love of books. I had my first poem published at ten. It was about her. I called her the stars "old but still shining." My teacher, my beloved Mrs. Reece, saw some promise in me. I was handed a copy of The Hobbit the summer after fifth grade by Ms. Noel. I devoured it before school started back and to this day, I adore that novel. Some stupid standardized test that I took in sixth grade showed that I had the reading comprehension of college sophomore. I scored a 5 on the AP Lit and Comp exam in high school. I took the highest score in the school for the graduation writing test. Actually, I tied with a Mennonite girl. I went to honors college in university and spent my first semester with Chaucer and that professor who could read it in Middle English in his accent like some Canadian Sean Connery. There was a little crush. The professor I most wanted to impress because he'd been quite critical of my first essay said "I think you were the only person in class who read the assignment." I'd frankly had nothing else to do because I was on crutches for eight weeks and it was books and school and Dean's List.

I'm saying that my academic accomplishments are hers. For me, that is the greatest tribute I can pay her. She gave me the thing that I come back to in the worst seasons of my life. And the best. The thing I go to when I need to express hurt and love and frustration and joy and every emotion across the vast universe of a human heart. These words are her, manifest. So if you've made it this far and  you didn't already love her, I bet you do now or you'd have stopped reading long ago.

I also have to include her love for my baby. My only baby. She's always loved  boys. I think she loved me, and liked me, more because I gave him to her. In the winter of her life, I gave her a baby. She loved children. And I considered so many times over the years that pain I would cause to my child by encouraging that love. I knew she would have to go to Glory long before either of us. But I couldn't justify saving him the pain at the cost of her love. "Her price is far above rubies." Her preacher read Proverbs 31 at her service. I can't think of higher praise. And my sweet boy learned to love like she loved. That is hers too. His gentleness and willingness to help those who need it. He loves as hard as she always did, with fewer reservations, I'll add. His love is depthless and wider than the sea. Like her. A mother can be jealous. I am not. And I will never be sorry for the love they had between them.

She told me at twelve that she loved traveling with me. She'd taken me to Memphis. She and Jean and Debbie, Aunt Jean's daughter, and secretly, always my favorite cousin. She said that I was always grateful and never demanding. She said I was respectful and enjoyable to have as company. And that she liked taking me with her...and I don't know the exact words, but she meant that she was proud to take me to meet new people. I will as long as I live, take that with me. I think it was the seed for my love of travel and my constant quest for gratitude. I am good at gratitude.

She told me about playing with her sister as a child. She said that she and Jean would play dress up with Mother's things. And she would glow telling those stories. She talked so often of Jean. I am so proud to carry that name and that love. I never saw her hurt more than when Jean died. It truly makes me wish that I go first, but hope that my sissy doesn't have to carry that with her for more than a decade. She was in absolute awe of her big sister. I can relate.

She said that she'd always wanted six children and twins. Her oldest was born and she said that if it hadn't been for Jean and the way she and her husband, Woody, doted on him, she'd have "thrown him in the trash can." So that's not a new concept. She went on to have four anyway. I asked her if she didn't know what caused that. She got that look and I knew. She said "Well, I did, but your Pawpaw didn't" and she laughed. My young mind was scandalized.

She told about shopping trips in downtown Chattanooga with Jean. She said they'd shop all day in high heels and girdles. Yikes. She told how Jean was always so fashionable and graceful. She was tall, y'all. Born in 1925 and 5'11". She was thin and blonde and dignified. She was brilliant. She was a CPA. Think about her age. She was beyond remarkable. Growing up, Aunt Jean was a movie star to me. Her house was always perfectly in order, the property was always fruit trees and blackberries.

Aunt Jean was Nicole Kidman before Nicole Kidman. And I always wanted to be just like her because Nanny wanted to be just like her. Imagine the power of the love that can transcend generations that way. I was blonde and tall like her. I strive to be cool and collected and thin and fashionable and brilliant like her.

I'm here for her tribute. And I cannot ever do justice to her. I can never find the words. I don't believe there are words that ever could. To appreciate her, you had to have her say "Call me Nanny." You had to have her invite you to the table. You had to have her call and sing you Happy Birthday, and oh, man, she could not sing a note. You had to know the scent of her face cream. You had to hear her laugh, and you had to hear her sneeze. You had to know that she packed her WaterPik across multiple continents. You had to hear her talk about her sister, Jean, with admiration and so much love and awe. You had to see her face light up when she talked about how handsome Pawpaw was. You had to be there to see her knowledge of trees, flowers, birds, plants, preserving, butchering, growing. Never plant in the head or the arms. You had to know her love for children. Her love for animals. Her love for a blue-eyed, dark-haired man. I can't make words to describe all she was. Maybe the words exist, but I don't have them. I bet Hemingway himself wouldn't have. I think he'd have liked her fine though. He'd have liked me too. Our moxie.

I could write about her for a thousand years and still not say enough. I can show you this candid photo. I don't know who she was looking at. It was at the kitchen table, in her seat, after church one Sunday. She was wearing the very dress we buried her in. She was facing that kitchen window where she taught me so much. I can tell you in that moment, she was so happy. She was absolutely in love with whoever was speaking. She was wearing the pearls her husband gave her. A third of the original, which she split for each of her daughters at their weddings. Her way of making sure their father was there with them. And that she was with them all the days of their lives. All those teeth are hers. Those lines are hers. And ours.

I will carry her with me every day of my life. I will hear her in my heart when I I don't know what to do. I will ask myself with life's hard decisions "What would Nanny say?" and "Would I be ashamed to tell Nanny?" I will wear her wisdom like a mink coat. "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar" and "Men, put 'em in a bag and shake them up and they all come out the same." I will do my best to be her legacy of love. I will love hardest those who need it most. And I will do my best to love the ones we can't tell need it as much as they do. And I will work to be happy. I will make it a conscious effort. I will do my best to practice temperance. I will read my Bible and study it too. That above all, is what I hope. I hope that her love of reading that she gave to me, will instill in me a desire to understand the words. And that I will.

My dearest Nanny, I love you. I am so sorry that you can't read this. You always said to give you your flowers while you were alive. And I hope the way I spoke of you to everyone did that. I hope you knew all of what I said here. I hope I gave you all your flowers. You deserved a crown of them. And I'm sure you have that now.